History of Flavors and Colors in Softdrinks

History of Flavors and Colors in Softdrinks
Original carbonates were artificial imitations of naturally occurring mineral waters. Manufactures blended mineral salts in the same proportions as found in the natural spring waters and added carbonated water. A large range of such waters was available during the early 1800s. Early attempts at producing flavored products were limited by a lack of stable flavoring and spoilage problems.

The flavoring materials used consisted mainly of herbal/botanical extracts, for example, ginger, nettle, nutmeg, horehound, lemon oil, vanilla etc., but the technology for manufacture of soluble stable flavoring extracts develop rapidly during the middle of the century with the establishment around this time of many specialty flavor companies.

An early recipe for lemonade consisted of citric acid essential oil of lemon and sugar syrup, the mixture being topped up with water and impregnated with carbon dioxide – instantly recognizable as the forerunner of today’s lemonade.

By the second half of the century, carbonate manufacturers could buy a very comprehensive range of flavors to use in their products and the science of flavor chemistry as well under way. As demonstrated by the development of artificial vanilla by Tiemann and Wallach in 1872. This reduced the cost of vanilla flavor by factor of more than x30.

Many of the popular drinks of today were on sale before 1900. The quantity of CO2 added to a drink has a pronounced effect upon its clear character and flavor impact. The solubility of CO2 in water decreases as temperature increases but increases with increasing pressure, that is, a given level of carbonation will generate a higher pressure as the temperature increases. Ice cold water (0 degree C) will dissolve 1.7 volumes (3.4 g/l) of CO2 at atmospheric pressure.

At CO2 levels and at temperatures above this, increased pressure must be applied to retain the CO2 in solution. In some of his early highly carbonated waters Nicholas Paul used carbonations of up to eight volumes of CO2 (16 g/l): however, the usual carbonation levels now range from about two volumes for a slightly sparkling fruit drinks to around five volumes for a mixer drink such as tonic water.

In the early 1800s, colors were restricted to mainly variants of brown and red that is, those which could be produced from caramel or cochineal. This remained the case until the introduction of synthetic aniline dyes around 1880. In 1885 the manufacturing of some colors from vegetable extracts but that there was a trend for these to be replaced by the new aniline-based dyes, even though these are considered objectionably by many. It also strongly warned manufacturers not to use colors such as arsenic sulphate, lead chromate, mercury sulphate and copper arsenite, which it claimed were sometimes used to color confectionary.
History of Flavors and Colors in Softdrinks